February 2026
Intermediate to advanced
32 pages
36m
English
Content preview from Redefining OS Selection
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 1. The Strategic Shift in OS Selection
Requirements created by a modern IT environment are driving a major fundamental shift in enterprise OS infrastructure and app deployment strategy. The traditional benefits of an unchanging and unexamined OS ecosystem—simplified management and deployment, reduced need for training, etc.—are being rethought in the light of the modern speed of progress. Organizations are recognizing that rigid OS preferences are liabilities more than strengths; flexibility and rapid capability growth are more important than maintaining the status quo. Companies that don’t consider this path risk being left behind by competitors that are more ready and able to be flexible. Additionally, the speed of the changing technology climate is further complicated by geopolitical factors that directly impact procurement decisions.
Major Themes and Changes
Several themes are now driving OS selection decisions in the enterprise. These are not isolated trends but rather interconnected forces reshaping how organizations approach their infrastructure strategy. We will talk about each of these in more detail later in this report.
Innovation acceleration is the dominant driver of OS selection decisions. Simply put: AI, automation, edge and cloud computing, IoT, and new custom hardware are evolving so fast that not everyone can keep up. Companies are concerned about technical debt as technology evolves faster than ever. Emerging technologies once required years to reach ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.